ENDGAME?
Congratulations to Mara Yamauchi on her second place in the London Marathon. She employed the same positive tactics - ie go with the leaders, and ensure the pace if it flags - that gleaned her sixth place in the Olympic marathon in Beijing last summer. 
And as she said after London, if Paula Radcliffe returns to full fitness in time for the World Championships in Berlin, there is the possibility of two marathon medals for the UK in August. Now wouldn’t that be something!
On the other hand, what about the British men, the first of whom, Andi Jones finished 13th in London, in 2.15.20? While Radcliffe can still win London - albeit that is a diminishing return - and Yamauchi could win London, the possibility of a British man figuring in what the organisers can justifiably call the best marathon in the world is as remote as Prime Minister Gordon Brown winning an award for stand-up comedy.
Never say never, goes the warning. But while some commentators are suggesting Mo Farah, and even looking ahead 10 years and more, to Steph Twell’s debut (talk about clutching at straws!), I would venture that no Brit, apart from Radcliffe and Yamauchi, and certainly no British man will get near to winning London in at least the next quarter century.
It’s not quite that long since the last men’s victory by a Brit, Eamonn Martin in 1993, but the signs of terminal decline were there long before that. Around 20 years ago, I ran into one of my former club-mates, while I was training in the countryside, on a visit to my family home in the West Midlands. He was a schoolteacher, feeling the effects of the Thatcher ‘rationalisation’ of education in Britain. At the end of a litany of woe, including the mass selling-off of school sports fields, he maintained that teachers would stop volunteering to take the kids to cross-country races, or football and cricket matches on Saturdays; because they were being forced to see teaching as a job like any other, to take up and drop at will, rather than the vocation that it had been for so long. And that is exactly what happened, and school sport, not just athletics suffered accordingly.
At the same time, in the wake of dozens of British men, including many non-elites, ie good club runners breaking 2.20 in the second London Marathon in 1982, the fun-running movement took off in earnest. Clubs may have been glad initially to get a boost in membership, but they weren’t ready for people who saw running as a pastime, the ones I referred to in a recent blog, as preferring to run on a treadmill in front of a TV, beside a window looking out on a huge sunlit park. Another pal tells me that he, a former sprinter, recently finished sixth in his club cross country, only to be told that he was senior champion. The ones ahead of him were all vets, ie masters. Yet another pal tells me that some of the joggers in his club refuse to run through mud when they’re training. These are the people who wilfully ignore that cross country running in winter can help reduce marathon times. They are like weekend drivers. To make matters worse, many of these people have acceded to positions of authority in the hierarchy of clubs, when they don’t have the faintest idea of what it takes to become a champion. So young inductees are not going to know either. In short, the club system has fallen apart. And that was the basis of success in British distance running.
It was mob-training in club groups ( as well as their own private blowouts) that produced the likes of Dave Bedford, Brendan Foster, Mike Tagg, Ian and Peter (and Mary) Stewart, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, Dave Moorcroft, Nick Rose, Dave Black, Steve Jones, Dave Clarke, Julian Goater, Steve Binns, Mike McLeod, Bernie Ford, Tony Simmons, Eamonn Martin, Tim Hutchings, Jack Buckner. And that was just the Class of ‘75 to ‘85. And I’ve probably left a few names out. As I’ve asked before, if these guys could win Olympic, European and Commonwealth golds, take national titles or world records, and (almost) all run (well) under 28 minutes for 10,000 metres, how come no one, but NO ONE can do it now?
The production line was, first, school; second, club (or, more rarely, university); third, elite competition. I doubt we’re getting out of the starting gate now. In contrast, Yamauchi, married to a Japanese and living in Japan, has the ideal environment to nurture her improvement from a middling marathoner to a world-class one. As she said last week, “Japan makes you raise your game. They have so many athletes training full time for the marathon, the depth is unbelievable. And then, they always have good quality races. At the elite level (in the UK), we don’t have that much depth”.
Radcliffe herself feels that men coped worse than women with these last two decades of fall-out. “Our squad development and group training mentality fell apart,” she says, “men in particular need that more than women, (who) will either be able to get themselves together in a group or they will go out and hammer it in training. In my experience, women can train more closely to their maximum on their own for more sessions in the week than men. It’s just the way the physiology is. By putting men in a squad, you force them to push a little bit harder and train a little bit harder. Women are generally better organised and more consistent. You might see the guys start off a bit faster and probably running at a quicker pace, but they’re fair-weather runners. If the rain or snow comes in, the guys are going to bottle out.”
Yamauchi is more sympathetic, and makes a good point about the comparative (thus far) frailties of East African women. “I feel so sorry for the GB men, everyone criticises them. One thing that is different is that men’s distance running is much more dominated by East Africans than the women’s. If you were a 16 yr old boy in Britain watching the world cross country, what incentive would you have? You may have to be even more devoted if you’re a (British) man”.
Of course, wait ’til the likes of Pamela Jelimo and Janeth Jepkosgei graduate to marathon running. After all, recent Boston Marathon winner, Salina Kosgei began, like them, as an 800 metres runner; but nowhere near as good as the Olympic gold and silver medallists. Kosgei then graduated through the distances, winning Commonwealth 10,000 metres gold on her way to the marathon.
A combination of increased volume training in college, and altitude camps for post-student elites is helping US distance running to come back from a similar decline, to compete with the East Africans. But that US model, implemented half a dozen years ago, is not necessarily the one for European countries. It is certainly not a model for the UK, because we have had a competely different system. Yes, we have inter-university sports competition, but at nothing like the refined, hot-house level that exists in the USA. The UK version was the club system, which has all but imploded.
Ian Stewart, UK Athletics’ new head of endurance has been charged with the task of reversing the downward trend. As the last Brit to win the world (senior) cross country (ahem, in 1975!), winner of European and Commonwealth titles, and an acknowledged ‘hard man’ of the training grounds, Stewart is a good choice, but even he admits that the prospect is far more difficult than he thought when he took on the job six months ago. “I knew there was a lot to do but there is far more than I thought. Some of the boys have been running only 20-30 miles a week. Now we’ve got people like Mo (Farah) jacking up mileage of 100-120 miles a week. It’s a big lifestyle change. In the last 10-15 years there was a groundswell of opinion that said ‘less is more’. We had runners doing more work in the gym. But they’re not doing that in Kenya or Ethiopia, they’re getting miles under their belt”.
There is a review in process, with suggestions of moving the national endurance centre - currently in West London - to a more central location, in the Midlands; and taking bigger groups to Font Romeu, Radcliffe’s altitude training base in the Pyrennees. Farah, a self-confessed former party-animal, has demonstrated the benefits of knuckling down to a lifestyle dedicated to athletic excellence, and the European indoor title is the latest manifestation of that.
But when you can count the number of elite distance runners in the country on one hand, you know this is one recession that has no end in sight.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Not much to disagree with there, Mr B.
Would add that the recent UKA management also ill-served distance runners. It became a non-virtuous circle: they weren’t going to win anything (so Collins, for it was he, thought), therefore don’t spend any resources on them.
In contrast, the sprint relay squads were getting £1 million on specific squad investment.
Interviewed Liz McColgan last week on the initiative, and she says Birmingham will get the national endurance centre, with three or four satellites.
More here: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=81977842250&h=vXEgY&u=EA_y3&ref=mf
April 29th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
thanks to my colleague Steve Downes….
some valuable inside info, from one of the best ‘diggers’ in the business
April 29th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
The key to the African success has been pretty simple: a highly competitive environment among a genetically gifted population. The African success began back in the ’60s with the Ethiopian marathoners. The Kenyans began to dominate the track in the ’70s(’68 Games in Mexico City)with the same formula–lots of great athletes battling for the top of the heap in their own village, region, country. I was part of a successful US cross country team in college. We were in the top 10 at the NCAA XC meet all four years, had an American recordholder in the steeplechase and the Olympic gold medal winner at 800 in ‘72. The key to our success was the same a bunch of very competitive individuals pushing each other every day to be the best we could be. That depth of talent and competition vanished from the US scene in the ’80s and ’90s as US coaches recruited their way to success, rather than attempted to develop US talent. The emphasis has shifted now along with the Running USA program that is providing support to athletes who want to continue their athletic careers after college. The club system in the UK used to provide that “cradle to grave” atmosphere of nurturing talent and stimulating competition, but as you note that has crumbled. In my brief time living in London I recall watching a young Mo Farah destroy the junior fields in a XC meet on the Heath. It wasn’t a case where he had several British runners pushing him, he had to push himself to get to the top of the heap internationally. It’s the lack of depth that has hurt UK distance runners. Mara mentioned how she had thrived in the highly competitive environment in Japan where she was pushed to be better by one of the strongest groups of female marathoners in the world, who live, train, and compete in Japan. That environment, as in any profession, is essential to developing lots of talented individuals. A Paula Radcliffe will succeed in any system, but she had Liz Yelling, McColgan, Yvonne Murray, and others pushing her as well during her formative years. The root of sport is competition. The US system was based on the concept of an inverted pyramid where one encouraged participation by a large segment of the population. Competitive opportunities were provided for large masses of people and the “cream” rose to the top. The Darwinian model of sport. It works.
April 29th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Unfortunately, Pat states so many fundamental truths.
It’s been a slow degradation of resources leading to an enormous waste of talent. The most salient - and distressing - point may be that pointing out what is wanting among many of the current crop of club administrators. As well meaning as they may be, this is especially worrisome.
Possibly the only ray of hope is that, if the US can show signs of turning around what was an abysmal international (distance running) record, maybe so, too, can the UK. Maybe.
Everybody needs a straw to clutch to.
JOB
April 30th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Improve your club system by developing and providing for your coaches and the rest will be taken care of.
Squad training and club rivalry will be an easy route to long-term success, however the mushroom approach to athletics is mind boggling
But then on my time spent in the UK, the system seemed to be archaic with organisers seemingly determined to hang onto the past and their amatuer status in more ways than one
the current revival to US distance running can be largely attributed to squad training and Hansons were forerunners in this approach in the US.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
”I would venture that no Brit, apart from Radcliffe and Yamauchi, and certainly no British man will get near to winning London in at least the next quarter century”.
It is astonishing and ill considered claim to make…
It is even omitting athletes that haven’t been born yet!!
April 30th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
that’s as maybe, Stu, but despite my advancing years, I intend to be alive and kicking (and maybe even running) in a quarter century, so do you want to put a wager on this, say a grand sterling?
you could win in the next couple of years, but I doubt it!
there is one proviso, however, that Sammy Wanjiru (or someone of equal ability, if such exists) doesn’t take British nationality
April 30th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Interesting that you choose to quote Paula so horribly out of context in order to support your argument. Paula’s statements about ‘Boys being fair weather runners’ is from the Spikes magazine article where she is talking about the Nike Plus Man v Women challenge. NOT elite runners. It’s a shame that you decided to use that knowing full well (I expect) that it was entirely irrelevant and therefore very misleading.
Also, for the record Andrew Lemoncello ran 27.56 for 10,000m last weekend so yes some of the current crop have run under 28minutes! 2 of them in fact! Lets wait until the current crop have finished their careers before we decide that they aren’t as good as their predecessors! That the current strength/depth is weaker than it has been is evident, but, comparing the current guys at their current level with the single best ever performance of the guys from the past is not a fair match up.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Apologies, Gavin, and everyone else, I took those Radcliffe quotes from one of last week’s national dailies, that’s what columnists do
and search as I might, I cannot find the interview anywhere on the Spikes website, I’d be grateful if anyone could send the interview
so no, I didn’t wilfully misrepresent Radcliffe’s views, and they are there as a comment, and hardly diminish my argument if they weren’t there
in any case, much as Lemoncello’s performance is welcome, you’re right, it’s not a fair match-up, since current and recent past runners cannot hold a candle to those I cited
May 1st, 2009 at 12:28 am
I think also that you’ve got to look at who charged with running these clubs. When you’re starting out as a runner, you don’t know what distances you can run, you don’t even know what if any potential you have as a runner unless your naturally gifted as say Mo Farah is.
Call me a whiner if you want but my biggest problem with running clubs is that while running with one as a youngster kids around my age seemed to be ignored, left to to their own thing and then when running with a club a little later in life being told pretty much every week that “you’ll never make a runner!!”
Maybe some encouragement rather discouragement would help keep younger kids interested in running from an early age. Do you think kids that join football teams are told that they’ll never make a football player on a weekly basis?
May 1st, 2009 at 3:02 am
Hi Pat,
Great piece as always.
It seems that everyone has a comment about the situation that British male distance running finds itself in but very few people offer solutions. The following is what I would suggest.
UKA is one of the best financed or possible the best financed governing bodies in the world of Athletics. This is true at least up until the London Olympics. They should go back to basics and reintroduce track and field into the British high school system. This should be done by paying coaches ( preferably teachers already in the school system) to coach after school track and field three or four afternoons per week. There could be a designated school in each town or city with a paid coach who could recruit, motivate and channel promising young athletes in the right direction. It would be relatively inexpensive way to identify talent and pave the way for future success.
The talent to compete at world level does exist in Great Britain. It is not being identified, nurtured or coached correctly. UKA introduced a coach education system that was ill founded and basically taught crap. The new comers to the sport from the jogging fraternity absorbed what they were taught on these courses. They went back to the clubs and imparted this misinformation and over a period of a decade or more we arrive at the present dismal situation.
The US system is indeed currently the best in the Western world for producing competitive distance runners. UK coaches should take their blinkers off, get their heads out of the sand and encourage the best endurance athletes to seek scholarships. It would give an extra four years of development in an age group where they would be competitive and able to find appropriate level of competition. This would go a long way to providing a relatively quick fix until we can turn things around.
A word to Ian Stewart. Apart from MO and Badderly the only male event we can realistically hope to be competitive in London 2012 is the men’s 800m. It is an event relatively untouched by drug abuse because of its unique physiological demands. We should be looking to find four or five 46 point 400m men who would be willing to train as a group and groom and condition them for the 800m with the best coaches available. With good support, planning and coaching we could expect a finalist with potential to contend for a medal. JIm, Harvey.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:17 am
Gavin.
Good point about Lemoncello. But where is he based? Flagstaff, Arizona. And remember he trains with McMillan Elite, one of the top US squads with Martin Fagan among others. As you pointed out Lemoncello ran 27: 56, and a few weeks ago Fagan broke John Treacy’s Irish half marathon record. I wonder if those two would have achieved their respective breakthroughs if they had remained in The British Isles, rather than joining up with one of the top squads in the States after graduating from their respective US colleges.
Pat.
And it’s not just the UK where standards have fallen. Why weren’t there any heats in both 10000 metre events at both the previous Olympics? ………Lack of numbers?
May 1st, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Stop chasing your tail Pat! Distance running for European men is finished. Only the American’s and Japanese, with their domestic funding are still in the game now- albeit from a distance. The past is gone, but my UK 10km record lives!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Globerunner welcomes Jon Brown to the site.
Jon has been virtually the sole standard-bearer for elite men’s distance running in the UK for the last decade, twice finishing fourth in the Olympic marathon, in 2000/4.
Incidentally, Eamonn Coghlan, who also twice finished 4th in the OG (1500 1976, 5000 1980) once characterised it as, “the loneliest place in athletics”.
As Jon points out with pride, he is the UK record holder for 10,000 metres, with 27.18.14, in 1998.
Mo Farah obviously has the wherewithall to break Jon’s record - time will tell.
Jon, incidentally has now switched his allegiance to Canada, his long-time home.
Thanks too to old pal, Jim Harvey, a former training partner (and one-time Hell’s Angel, but that’s another story).
Jim has coached many fine runners out of Providence, RI, most recently, Mark Carroll, and Jim has excelled himself in providing a comprehensive blue-print for Ian Stewart and UK Athletics, if they have the sense to take it onboard.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 am
Good stuff, Pat. I have a few ideas about some of what may be wrong - based on recent experience with the Cambridge University cross-country runners (where are the Turners, Briaults, Johnstons, etc. of yester-year?!).
Make no mistake, some of those guys work hard in training! But it strikes me as largely misdirected effort - endless reps and intervals, as though Cerrutty/Elliott and the Lydiard 100-mile-a-week school had never happened. No one trains on the country anymore. When i took some of them out (on my bike!) on a fartlek run, one of their top people (a GB junior international) decried it as ‘random’. Result: lack of basic strength/endurance and proneness to injury. Obviously, if you do the same type of running day after day, on the same type of surface, you’re just training - and over-training - the same specific muscle groups, tendons and ligaments, and end up over-stressing them.
I believe that, paradoxically, a lot of the trouble is down to ’scientific’ coaching. Basically, we’re back in the era of Gerschler, Stampfl and Igloi, and their belief that training could be mathematically programmed. What’s made it worse is the advent of computer and internet: the coach has the computer write the training programme, then distributes it to the athletes by e-mail. No need for anyone to get their feet dirty!
In the old days, the mainstay of both club and university distance training was the group, devil-take-the hindmost burn-up. It could be on the road after work, or over the country at weekends, and for those privileged enough not to have to work. It generally lasted around an hour and was highly competitive. There was a pecking order, which constantly changed as newcomers and youngsters fought their way up through the ranks.
So that’s one of the first things Ian could do, if he hasn’t done so already: have his squads leaven the interval/repetition running (for which there’s certainly still a place) with group fartlek sessions, preferably over demanding terrain, and under the supervision of a coach/group leader who understands about varying pace and effort, without the need for fancy meters and monitors to tell him what to do. Golf courses, parkland and forest circuits are ideal. No shortage of venues, despite the sell-off of school playing fields. Just a matter of having sufficient self-belief to break away from the tyranny of ’science’.
Also, altitude training is a must! I would reckon at least 2 visits per year, of 4-6 weeks each. And you’ve got to be up well over 2000 metres to get the full effect. Font Romeu is OK, but not high enough. (Same applies to Boulder.) Also, the terrain is not specially favourable for longer runs - too many long, steep climbs. From that point of view, St. Moritz is better, tho again not high enough. Ideally, you need to be somewhere where you can regularly go up for sessions at 3000 metres plus. When you come back down to 2000, you’re flying! I can no longer recommend Mexico City (pollution, swine fever!), but Addis Ababa is excellent. What’s more, training in Addis, with the Ethiops, you get to realise that these guys are not supermen, but humans (albeit genetically gifted) like the rest of us.
One more point about altitude training: the main object should be to work the cardio-vascular system. Hence, loads of steady and tempo running and fartlek. Running 6 min-miles at 3000m can be as tough as 5s at sea-level! And because you’re going slower, it takes the stress off the legs.
Best,
Tim J
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
some more eminent good sense from Tim, twice winner of the Inter-Counties cross country, back when it was the equal of the National, and 30k world record holder.
Like Jim Harvey, Tim has thought a lot about this, and has the advantage of having been to all those altitude training venues he’s mentioned, and run there.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Sadly most of these remedies have been told to UKA time and time again in recent years and they have ignored them. When I suggested some harder methods to Dave Collins at an interview last year I was mocked for my ideas. Well thankfully he has gone now.
I do not agree that it needs to take 25 years for a London winner but I expect that it will. When I started coaching with the National Orienteering squad in 1979 and we started to be seriously analytical about what to do, GB was in the same position compared to the Scandinavians as we are now with Africans. Last year GB won the World Championships. There was nothing magic about this just continued hard team work year after year and steadily growing confidence.
I am sure that we will get back but we need to get at the root of the psychological problems of our sport by getting back working motivational tools, not just telling people to work harder.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Great blog/replies …. in total agreement …. our “elite” distance runners should be made to read Toby Tanser’s book “More Fire” .. the most detailed account of Kenyan training practices in publication. The Kenyans do very little in the form of interval training, but lots of long, hard tempo runs at or near to race pace.
Basically in the UK the coach education system is a shambles. I once attended a course where the presenter argued that a “long run” for a national class 16-year old distance runner should be no more than about 5-6 miles (absolutely pathetic!!)
If interested, some of my thoughts on this subject can be found on my website at: http://www.beaconhillstriders.co.uk/index.php?section=11
Alan.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Pat,
How will a British man win the London Marathon? With respect to you and the guys commenting above (many of whom I know), I think looking at improved training for the current generation is not what’s going to produce a British London Marathon winner.
The singular best chance a British man has of winning London is if the prize money was entirely removed.
That way the international runners would not be incentivised to show up, but Brits would remain highly motivated to shoot for the win and most likely get it…albeit in something north of 2.12.
Yours (tongue in cheek)
Matt Smith